Indusco Bailie School Collection, 1940-1952.

Following the Japanese invasion of China in 1937, the New Zealand expatriate Rewi Alley threw his considerable talents behind the war effort. Building upon knowledge acquired over a decade of living in China, Alley helped organize the Chinese Industrial Cooperative Movement (CIC). The CIC coordinated the creation of industrial cooperatives throughout unoccupied China to keep industrial production flowing, and it sponsored a series of industrial schools named after Alley’s friend Joseph Bailie to provide training and support.

The Indusco Bailie School Collection includes documents and photographs relating to the establishment and operation of the Bailie Schools in China during and immediately after the Second World War. Probably associated with the Indusco offices in New York City, these documents include a model constitution for industrial cooperatives, typewritten reports on Bailie Schools, and published articles describing the schools’ efforts. The reports extend through 1949, and include three mimeographed newsletters from the Shantan Bailie School for the months immediately following the school’s liberation by Communist forces. Also included are printed works by Alley and eighteen photographs taken between 1942 and 1944 of students and scenes at Bailie Schools.

IUERMW Local 206 Records, 1936-1986.

Union that represented workers at the American Bosch plant in Springfield, Massachusetts, affiliated with the International Union of Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers after 1949.

Records include by-laws, minutes of the Executive Board, General Council, and Membership meetings, correspondence, membership reports, grievance and arbitration records, contract negotiation proposals and counter-proposals, strike materials, and publications documenting the administration, activities, and membership of Local 206. Effects of changing national economy and international trade on workers and union affairs, through time, are evident.

Types of material

Joseph D. Norton and Son Account Book, 1851-1881.

Father and son wood turners, manufacturers of ladders, and general wood workers from the Loudville section of Westhampton, Massachusetts. Includes names of customers and businesses (bulk of the accounts are with local lumber and furniture dealers S.M. Smith Co., E.H. Lyman, Medad Pomeroy, and Charles Loud & Co.), items sold (such as bureaus, tables, and lumber), furniture that they repaired, and supply items which they acquired (such as varnish, stain, glass, tacks). Also contains documentation of employee payment, flour, tow, sugar, and coffee purchases, and employee lost work days.

Subjects

Charles Loud and Co

E. H. Lyman (Firm)

Furniture industry and trade--Massachusetts--Northampton--History--19th century

Furniture industry and trade--Massachusetts--Westhampton--History--19th century

Furniture--Repairing--Massachusetts--Loudville--History--19th century

Ladders

Loudville (Mass.)--Economic conditions--19th century

Lumber trade--Massachusetts--Northampton--History--19th century

Lumber trade--Massachusetts--Westhampton--History--19th century

Medad Pomeroy (Firm)

S.M. Smith Co.

Wages--Furniture workers--Massachusetts--Loudville--History--19th century

Wages-in-kind--Massachusetts--Loudville--History--19th century

Woodworkers--Massachusetts--Loudville--Economic conditions--19th century

Edward Judice Photograph Collection, 1973-2010.

Raised on Long Island, Ed Judice embarked on a path in photography at the age of 13 when he took a job sweeping floors in a local photo studio. After picking up work photographing locally and a stint in the army, he moved to New York city, Judice began doing commercial work for ad agencies and magazines and eventually with Polaroid. Through Polaroid, he began developing contacts in western Massachusetts, eventually moving to Wendell in the early 1970s. He maintains an active studio in Northampton.

The Judice collection consists of a series of 59 digital images relating to a photo documentation project at the Rodney Hunt factory in Orange, Mass., in 1973 and 1974; a series of photographs documenting the bicentennial of Wendell in 1981; and two video documentaries of the Three County Fair, Northampton, Mass., 2007, and “Benny and Joe: A friendship,” 2010.

Sidney and Emma Nogrady Kaplan Papers, ca.1937-1993.

An eminent scholar of African American history and activist, Sidney Kaplan was raised in New York City and graduated from City College in 1942. After wartime service as a Lieutenant in the Army, Kaplan returned to his education, completing an MA in history from Boston University (1948) and PhD at Harvard (1960), taking up the study of African American history at a time when few white scholars showed interest. Joining the English Department at UMass in 1946, Kaplan’s influence was widely felt at UMass Amherst and in the local community: he was among the founders of the Department of Afro-American Studies, a founder of the UMass Press, a founder and editor of the Massachusetts Review, and he was the editor of Leonard Baskin’s Gehenna Press. Over more than thirty years at UMass, he worked on diverse projects in history, literature, and the arts, often in partnership with his wife Emma Nogrady, a librarian at Smith College whom he married in 1933, ranging from studies of Poe and Melville to a biographical dictionary of African Americans and a study of Shays’ Rebellion. In 1973, they were co-authors of the first comprehensive study of depictions of African Americans in the visual arts, The Black Presence in the Era of the American Revolution (based on an exhibition planned for the National Portrait Gallery), and in 1991, the UMass Press published a collection of Sidney’s essays, American Studies in Black and White. A Fulbright lecturer in Greece and Yugoslavia and exchange Professor at the University of Kent, Kaplan was the recipient of the Bancroft Award from the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History for best article of the year in the Journal of Negro History, and he was awarded the UMass Amherst Chancellor’s Medal in 1979, one year after his retirement. Sidney Kaplan died in 1993 at age 80 and was followed by Emma in 2010.

The Kaplan Papers document a long career devoted to the study of African American history and life. The extensive correspondence, research notes, and drafts of articles and other materials offer important insight into the growth of African American studies from the 1950s through 1970s as well as the growth of UMass Amherst into a major research university.

Subjects

African Americans--History

Massachusetts Review

University of Massachusetts Amherst--Faculty

University of Massachusetts Amherst. Department of Afro-American Studies

Lillian Hyman Katzman Papers, 1952-1989.

When Lillian Hyman volunteered to work with the Democratic Party in New York City in 1948, she was sent over to the office of W.E.B. Du Bois to assist him with some secretarial work. From that beginning, she was hired as a secretary, remaining in Du Bois’s employ for several years until she, regretfully, left for higher pay. Hyman later earned her masters degree and taught in the public schools in New York, starting the first class for children diagnosed with brain injury.

The Katzman Papers contains a series of letters and postcards sent by Du Bois during the early 1950s when Hyman worked as his secretary. Friendly and informal, they concern lecture tours by Du Bois and his wife, Shirley Graham, out west, and arrangements for his home at Grace Court in Brooklyn. The collection also includes a handful of publications by Du Bois, newspaper clippings, and some congratulatory letters to Hyman on her marriage.

Kingsbury Family Papers, 1862-2006 (Bulk: 1881-1902).

The family of Roxana Kingsbury Gould (nee Weed) farmed the rocky soils of western New England during the late nineteenth century. Roxana’s first husband Ambrose died of dysentery shortly after the Civil War, leaving her to care for their two infant sons, and after marrying her second husband, Lyman Gould, she relocated from southwestern Vermont to Cooleyville and then (ten years later) to Shelburne, Massachusetts. The Goulds added a third son to their family in 1869.

A rich collection of letters and photographs recording the history of the Kingsbury-Gould families of Shelburne, Massachusetts. The bulk of the letters are addressed to Roxana Kingsbury Gould, the strong-willed matriarch at the center of the family, and to her granddaughter, May Kingsbury Phillips, the family’s first historian. In addition to documenting the complicated dynamics of a close-knit family, this collection is a rich source for the study of local history, rural New England, and the social and cultural practices at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries.

Types of material

Edward W. Kinsley Papers, 1863-1891.

1 box (0.5 linear feet).Call no.: MS 101

A wool dealer in the firm of Horswell, Kinsley, and French of Boston, Edward W. Kinsley captured his memories of the Civil War in a series of written reminiscences. These typescript copies include his memories of the raising of the 1st North Carolina Colored Regiment, his second visit South and the Emancipation Proclamation Celebration, General Tom Stevenson’s confirmation as Brigadier-General, the second election of President Lincoln, and the fall of Richmond among others. The collection also includes passages from Kinsley’s diary, letters, a scrapbook, photographs, newspaper clippings, and notes from the diary of Edward’s wife, Calista A. Kinsley.

Subjects

United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865

Contributors

Kinsley, Edward W.

Types of material

Lamson and Goodnow Records, 1837-1911.

In 1834, Silas Lamson devised a curved snath that greatly improved the efficiency of the scythe, and riding the commercial success of his invention, Lamson, his sons Ebenezer and Nathaniel, and partner Abel Goodnow, founded the manufacturing firm of Lamson and Goodnow in Shelburne Falls, Mass., in 1837. Early in its history, Lamson and Goodnow recruited skilled workers from cutlery centers in England and Germany and began manufacturing the high quality knives and tableware that have remained the center of their production ever since. The firm was a major contributor to the region’s transformation from a primarily agricultural to an industrial economy, and by the time of the Civil War, they helped establish the Connecticut River Valley had emerged as the center of American cutlery production. At vartious points during their history, Lamson and Goodnow have been involved in the manufacture of arms (e.g. the Springfield Rifle), sewing machines, agricultural implements, and other tools. They remain active in the production of cutlery, trade tools, and kitchenware.

The Lamson and Goodnow records contain relatively dense documentation of a major manufacturer of cutlery and agricultural implements from roughly the time of its founding in 1837 through shortly after the turn of the twentieth century. In addition to account books, records of orders, sales, and production, and a dizzying array of canceled checks, receipts, and trade cards, the collection includes correspondence from field agents and customers that document the growth of the company during the first 75 years of its operation.

John W. Lederle Papers, 1947-1983 (Bulk: 1960-1970).

John Lederle played a large role in shaping the Amherst campus as it looks today, transforming UMass Amherst into a nationally respected research university and “great public center for excellence in higher education.” Born in Royal Oak, Michigan, Lederle received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1942. Admitted to the Michigan Bar in 1936, he worked with a Detroit law firm from 1936 to 1940 before joining the political science department at Brown University from 1941 to 1944. He returned to the University of Michigan in 1944, filling a number of positions until 1960, when the University of Massachusetts elected him President. Under Lederle’s leadership, the Amherst campus enjoyed its greatest period of growth. From 1960 to 1970, student enrollment more than tripled and faculty salaries nearly doubled. The academic program expanded greatly, particularly at the graduate level, and under his watch, the university instituted an academic press, a public radio station, and collaborative arrangements between the local colleges. The University system also evolved in the Lederle years, with the establishment of the Boston campus in 1964 and the medical school in Worcester in 1962.

The Lederle Papers include professional correspondence, administrative records, subject files, committee notes, reports, and clippings; Extra-University records that document Lederle’s involvement and interactions with governmental and non-governmental organizations at the state, regional, and national levels; personal correspondence, speeches, bibliographies of his writings, biographical information, a transcript of an oral history describing his administration, and materials relating to his professional activities that followed his presidency; and a series of confidential records.